Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
And all of that disappeared in two seconds.
I get out of the car and go inside the tent. Immediately, Mercy gets up from her little dog cushion and starts barking at me.
“She’s mad at you,” Amon says. Then he points to her. “Settle, Mercy.” And Mercy settles, going quiet and sittin’ nicely.
“She’s got no reason to be mad at me.”
“You leave her behind when you go home. She’s the only one who gets left behind.”
“What are you talking about? She’s a… co-worker. She doesn’t live with me, Amon.”
“She’s your partner, Collin. And from now on, you need to take her home. She’s been sleeping in the security tent all weekend.”
“What? Now I feel bad. How come you didn’t tell me this?”
“Why would I need to tell you that? She’s your partner.”
I look over at Mercy—who actually appears to be followin’ this conversation—and sigh. “Fine. You can come home with me. But you better be good or Lowyn will kick you out.”
She barks once.
“Come on, let’s go.” She comes over and heels like she’s stuck to my left knee. “I’ll be at the gate,” I tell Amon. Then we walk out.
But I catch him chuckling. Like there’s gonna be a surprise at my gate.
And sure enough, when I get over there, it’s already being manned by three men who don’t act jittery or look like they need a background check.
“Hey, Sarge,” one of the guys says.
“What did you just call me?”
“Uh…” He looks a little panicked. “Sarge? That’s what Amon told me to call you. But I can call you something else. What should I call you?”
“How ’bout my name?” I snap. “Which is Collin.”
“Cool.” He nods. “Yeah. Great. Nice to meet you. I’m Chuck, this is Darrel”—he points to the guy right behind him—“and that’s Matty.” He points to the third guy.
“All right. What are you doing here?”
“We’re… manning the north gate.”
“I man the north gate.”
“Right. But… I’m supposed to tell you that Lowyn… she’s waiting for you.”
“Who told you to say that? Amon?”
“No, sir. Jim Bob told me. She’s waiting for you at the east coffee tent.”
“Right now she is?”
“Right now, sir.”
And I guess Amon was right. Because if Lowyn is waiting for me somewhere, I’m gonna show up there. “OK,” I sigh. “You call me if you boys need anything.”
He salutes me.
I almost yell at him to stop doing that, but I already know that Amon told him to. He’s trying to piss me off from afar. It would be stupid to take it out on this guy because he doesn’t know any better, so I let it go and walk away.
But it’s hard to stay irritated right now. Because the Revival grounds have been transformed into something altogether different than I’ve ever seen before. So my attention is on the details in front of me and not on all the ways that Amon is taking Jim Bob’s side.
It kinda feels like a fairy forest underneath the massive tent roof. Since these whole five acres are truly outdoors, and this pitched-tent roof is just a temporary thing, there is grass along some of the side walkways that aren’t planked with wood like a boardwalk. There are trees in here, and birds in here, and flowers. The spring tulips aren’t as bright as they might be out in the sunshine, but there are little patches of orange, and yellow, and purple spoutin’ out of everywhere. And I am certain they are as new as the canvas roof above my head.
I look up and find long strings of garden lights. There’re people up there too, hanging off the extensive steel scaffolding, still stringing them along.
But that’s really the only sign that this is all fresh and wasn’t like this yesterday.
I don’t know how they did it, but it’s nice. And kinda romantic.
At the next little intersection I turn onto the main boardwalk, my new fancy shoes quieter than my boots usually are. The grounds aren’t open yet, so it’s just Disciple people doing last-minute things before everything gets going. And every single one of them shoots me a smile and a wave.
I shoot a smile and a wave back because it’s kinda rude not to.
And just this simple act of being smiled at and smiling back is enough to lift my mood. But even if it wasn’t, catching sight of Lowyn in the gazebo near the coffeeshop—sittin’ all alone like she’s waiting for me and wearing that gorgeous dress—well, that would be enough to lift anyone’s spirits.
I come up the steps to the gazebo and she turns to look at me, smiling. “Can you believe this? I mean, I’ve seen it like this a hundred times at least, but not in the spring. Not on opening day. The flowers, Collin. The trees have leaves! I don’t know.” She looks around like she’s trying to take it all in the same way I was. “It’s just kinda magical.”